but, my favorite (secular) book EVER is Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. I was sick and terribly delusional, seeing things, as I get. I opened up that book and saw it play out in my mind as I read! it was amazing, and I felt like I was in the book! (being a bit crazy has it's advantages!)

Favorite Book: Tao Te ChingFavorite Book About Orthodoxy: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, ed. by Benedicta WardFavorite Book By A Contemporary Orthodox Author: Way of the Ascetics, by Tito CollianderFavorite Other-Christian Book: Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, by G.K. ChestertonFavorite Fiction: Notes From Underground, by Fyodor DostoevskyFavorite Book That I'll Probably Never Read Again: The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander SolzhenitsynFavorite Book That I Claim To Love But Haven't Read In a Decade: Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. TolkienFavorite Book From My Youth: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. LewisFavorite Book That I'm Currently Reading: Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter KaufmannFavorite Book That I've Read For Entertainment's Sake: Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, by Mick FoleyFavorite Book of Poems: The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence DunbarFavorite Book on Fitness and Nutrition: Strength Training Anatomy, by Frederic DelavierFavorite Book on Books/Writing: Writer's Market (2010 Edition)Favorite Book on Philosophy: Greek Skepticism: Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought, by Leo GroarkeFavorite Biography: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Maisie Ward

So far. . . I think my favorite Orthodox Book (I'm sure this will change as I continue to read) is a tie between Father Arseny and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Heh. . .and there are some very very close seconds and thirds!

Favorite Book: Tao Te ChingFavorite Book About Orthodoxy: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, ed. by Benedicta WardFavorite Book By A Contemporary Orthodox Author: Way of the Ascetics, by Tito CollianderFavorite Other-Christian Book: Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, by G.K. ChestertonFavorite Fiction: Notes From Underground, by Fyodor DostoevskyFavorite Book That I'll Probably Never Read Again: The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander SolzhenitsynFavorite Book That I Claim To Love But Haven't Read In a Decade: Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. TolkienFavorite Book From My Youth: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. LewisFavorite Book That I'm Currently Reading: Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter KaufmannFavorite Book That I've Read For Entertainment's Sake: Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, by Mick FoleyFavorite Book of Poems: The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence DunbarFavorite Book on Fitness and Nutrition: Strength Training Anatomy, by Frederic DelavierFavorite Book on Books/Writing: Writer's Market (2010 Edition)Favorite Book on Philosophy: Greek Skepticism: Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought, by Leo GroarkeFavorite Biography: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Maisie Ward

Always dislike it when someone ask for my favorite x. I almost never have an answer. Ice cream flavor is about the only answer I have nailed down for sure. And yet I love to read lists of what others offer.

Do always find it funny when someone has more than one favorite. Nice job on your list. Gives me something to think about.

Also, I have to ask myself does favorite mean:

The one I like the most?Or the one I think is best?

Often they are not they same.

A few questions about your list:

How do you use:

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Favorite Book About Orthodoxy: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, ed. by Benedicta Ward

And why are you reading:

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Favorite Book That I'm Currently Reading: Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter Kaufmann

Eastern Orthodox: In no particular order; 1. The Mountain of Silence by Dr. Kyriacos Markides 2. The Way of a Pilgrim . 3 The Law of God by Fr. Serafim Slobodskoy 4. Fr. Arseny: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father by Vera Bouteneff. 5. Orthodox Psychotherapy by +Met. HIEROTHEOS 6. The Heart: An Orthodox Christian Spiritual Guide by Archimandrite Spyridon Logothetis 7. Functional and Dysfunctional Christianity by Philotheos Faros (recommended by our good friend and former poster, Ozgeorge.)

Secular: 1. Cannery Row by John Steinback 2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 3. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 4. How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill 5. History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt

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"The Scots-Irish; Brewed in Scotland, bottled in Ireland, uncorked in America." ~Scots-Irish saying

As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future.-- Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS

I know what you mean about the favorite/best thing. Regarding using the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, I'm not sure to what extent I use it. There's joy in reading it, and perhaps some inspiration. Insight into the human condition as well. For example, the Desert Fathers take Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" and smashes the theory into a million bits, I think. Regarding the book by Kaufmann, it's a great book. It has quite a few lines that I think are interesting, such as (taken from the first 20 pages or so)...

"Whatever professors of philosophy take up nowadays tends to become scholastic, and the rigor of the scholastics is rigor mortis."

"A philosophic book is almost a contradiction in terms. Socrates knew this and did not even try to write; Plato knew it and wrote dialogues--in which arguments alternate with myths, and epigrams with digressions--as well as a letter in which he insisted that his dialogues did not really contain his philosophy. In a sense, Plato's dialogues, however artfully organized, are fragments of the mind's soliloquy: invitations to a philosophic life."

"Bacon suggested: being bees or spiders. Some thinkers, like the ant, collect; some, like the spider, spin; some, like the bee, collect, transform by adding of their substance, and create. Vary the metaphor. Men are so many larvae, crawling, wriggling, eating--living in two dimensions. Many die while in this state. Some are transofrmed and take a single flight before they settle down to live as ants. Few become butterflies and revel in their new-found talent, a delight to all."

"Why did so few of the great philosophers laugh? ...Is all this due to the weight of tradition, or perhaps related to the prohibition of laughter in church? After all, the young Plato could laugh, and so could Shakespeare, even in Lear and Macbeth. And Goethe. And Dostoevsky. But if one can laugh in Lear, why not in the Critique of Practical Reason? Is the mad Lear funnier than Kant's postulate of God?"

"There are two kinds of philosophers. Both go out with similar hopes and acquire some competence. But to one kind you must give a topic. (After a while he may learn to think up his own.) The topic may be small or nothing less than a system: what matters is that it is primary, and the writer then brings to bear on it what competence he has. The other kind of writer has something to say before he is sure to what topic it will be most relevant. he writes first, and the outline comes afterward if at all--not to help him decide what to say but to assist him in organizing what he has said."

I would say that St. Thomas' Summas are on the top of my list, along with works on Thomism as well as On Being and Essence, De Veritatae, his scriptural commentaries, and his commentaries on Aristotle.St. John of the Cross (The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, and The Dark Night of the Soul)St. Teresa of Avila (The Way of Perfection, and The Interior Castle)The Imitation of ChristI really like Josef Pieper (In Defense of Philosophy, Living the Truth, The Silence of St. Thomas)Jaques Maritain (Existence and the Existent, Degrees of Knolege, Preface to Metaphysics)Etiennne Gilson (God and Philosophy)Norris Clarke (The One and the Many)Peter Kreeft (Socrates Meets Kant, Socrates Meets Decartes, Socrates Meets Hume, Socrates Meets Marx, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Socrates Meets Jesus)C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, Miracles, The Abolition of Man, The Cronciles of Narnia, and his space trilogy)Tolkien (The HObbit, The Lord of Rings, The Silmarillion)Aristotle (Physics, De Anima, Posterior Analytics, Metaphysics, Ethics)Plato (Theatetus, and others)

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"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.

I can never nail it down to just one choice either. I'm glad other's haven't either, because I also enjoy lists

Favorite Orthodox books:

Fr. ArsneyOil & Water, Bread & Wine by Archmandrite Webber - it goes very well with the lecture series he did over at AFRA Light from the Christian East by PaytonSayings of the Desert FathersCourage to Pray and Beginning to Pray by BloomGreat Lent by Schmemann

Favorite Christian non-Orthodox books:

Return of the Prodigal by NouwenWith Burning Hearts by NouwenBrendan by Buechner - maybe this one should go under novels??A Sacred Journey by BuechnerPeculiar Treasures by BuechnerOn the Road with the Archangel by BuechnerThe Irrational Season by L'Engle

Favorite Novels

Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I like the first and the last one best)Perelandra by LewisJonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Clarke (the best book I read in 08)Out of Africa by DinesenThe Eyre Affair, et al by FfordeThe Pooh books by Milne

Os Lusíadas, by Luís de Camões, Paradise Lost, by John Milton, all the works of Shakespeare (I mean, I am fascinated for the renaissance literature at all, Dante Alighieri, Miguel de Cervantes, all of them), Whuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, (I am also fascinated for romantism, and America is great, because you got the transcendentalists, I love Emmerson!), Faust, The Young Werter, that is translated in portuguese as "The Suffering of Young Werter", Storm and Drang, Les Miserables, The Three Musketeers, and of course, my own Brasilian romantics, with the poor lady "Iracema" (try this one, it's so beautiful!The romantism lovers will be marvelled with it), The Guarani, The Little Widow, Luciola, all by José de Alencar, and of course I would not forget the great Machado de Assis, with his "The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas", The Prince, by Dostoyevsky, Ulysses, by James Joyce, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, of course, the greatest novel of the second half of the 20th century: the lord of the rings!Just for record: I HATE all the books of Harry Potter and The Twilight Saga. They should build a city (i think it would be possible, since they sold zillions of books) with them and burn it to the ground.

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"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;Blessed are the pure in the heart, for they shall see God".

"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.

I think Greorge Lukas' Star Wars Pre-quels would have been MUCH better if Anakin would have truely been an Othello type character. I think he tried to do this, but failed.

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"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future.-- Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS

Favorite Book to Read When I was a Protestant: The Debate about the Bible: Inerrancy versus Infallibility, by Stephen T. DavisFavorite Book Written by an Unbeliever Who Later Became a Believer: Paul: The Mind of the Apostle, by A.N. WilsonFavorite Work of Fiction By an English Author Not Named Tolkien: Great Expectations, by Charles DickensFavorite Journalistic/Non-Fiction Book: Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul, by Edward HumesFavorite Book on History: Constantinople in the Age of Justinian, by Glanville DowneyFavorite Book About a Saint: Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography, by Fr. John Anthony McGuckinFavorite Dumbed-Down Book: What Nietzsche Really Said, by Robert Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins*Favorite Book About Movies: The Evil Dead Companion, by Bill Warren

*I don't buy those "dummies" or "idiots" books, so this is as close as I've got.

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I just recently finished "The Fencing Master" by Arturo Perez-Reverte, and I simply adore it.

Perez-Reverte is Spanish novelist who writes the perfect blends of piety/religious imagery and symbolism to a more "gritty and gangster" side of life which I must admit is quite similar to my own upbringing here in the Los Angeles area.

I just love every bit about his fiction, the tangible descriptions, the potent insights, the brilliant allusions/alliterations, the churning plot twists! Pure and absolute genius!

I also adore a German named Patrick Suskind who writes smaller novels that are somehow sublimely bitter without being nihilistic, which is quite hard to capture.

Aside from those and a few classics, I usually am absorbed in an eclectic pile of history and religious texts. For example, bookmarked on my table right now is a book on Saint Anthony, one on medieval Ethiopia, the Letter of Saint Basil, and an even more boring National Geographic about Human Evolution out of the Ethiopian highlands.

I'm the most exciting boring person y'all might know

stay blessed,habte selassie

« Last Edit: April 28, 2011, 04:18:02 PM by HabteSelassie »

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"Yet stand aloof from stupid questionings and geneologies and strifes and fightings about law, for they are without benefit and vain." Titus 3:10

This thread is like asking me to pick a favorite child. I'm only in my mid-twenties, are we even allowed to have favorite books yet?

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She's touring the facility/and picking up slack.--"For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18--I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view --Life went on no matter who was wrong or right

This thread is like asking me to pick a favorite child. I'm only in my mid-twenties, are we even allowed to have favorite books yet?

If they are honest, every parent has a favorite kid. They know it and the kids certainly do.

Perfectly normal.

A favorite book is much tougher to decide. Again not much into "favorites" questions. Most answers I doubt are honest which are given anyhow. Sorta why I like iTunes. When people ask what I like to listen to, I will say one thing, iTunes says another. Keeps me honest.

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Travel Writing about Russia: Sharon Hudgins, The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East (ridiculously thorough, and DON'T read during Lent because her food descriptions are plentiful and mouth-watering)

Russian lit (Gulag lit as I call it -- I have about 20 books dedicated to this subject alone...have only read Dostoevky's short stories so far...) : Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Holocaust literature: Clara Kramer, Clara's War

I can't help myself, I love all of Asne Seierstad's books. I don't agree with her political views and I believe the allegations that she does skew her anecdotes (who doesn't, especially if you're getting second-hand stories from a translator or if you are relying on a set of unreliable witnesses), but the stories that she tells are just amazing. With their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia is my favorite one of her books.

Hah, I am just going to keep listing really specific categories. I can't wait to go through this thread and get some more book recs (like I really need any more right now).

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She's touring the facility/and picking up slack.--"For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18--I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view --Life went on no matter who was wrong or right

One of my favorite writers of all time is GK Chesterton. He writes with such wit I literally laugh out loud and I love how conversational he writes; as though he's simply narrating. The Everlasting Man and Orthodoxy are the cream of his crop. His book on Francis of Asisi is interesting as well.

Have never like novels. I suppose I have movies for that haha.

Brennan Manning wrote The Wisdom of Tenderness which is probably the book that most impacted my life.

Some other good ones: On the Prayer of Jesus, The Way of the Pilgrim (of course), and then Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places and The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson. There is one more book in Mr. Peterson's series called Eat This Book which I hope to read soon, but I'm sure you all know how reading lists go haha.

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Authentic zeal is not directed towards anything but union in Christ, or against anything but our own fallenness.

On the Road with the Archangel by BuechnerThe Irrational Season by L'Engle

Father Webber's book literally changed my life, I am forever in his debt and gratitude that God could send my such a perfectly hand-tailored book to my needs, I read it almost daily alongside the Scriptures! It REALLY helps me keep my head straight, it should be part of the universal Orthodox Catechism

and L' Engle, I simply adore her books, they are a delight.

stay blessed,habte selassie

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"Yet stand aloof from stupid questionings and geneologies and strifes and fightings about law, for they are without benefit and vain." Titus 3:10

Paradise Lost by John MiltonLe Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas MaloryThe King of Ireland's Son by Padraic ColumThe King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord DunsanyThe book of ZhuangziKing Lear by ShakespearePretty much any classic fairy tale book

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Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn— whatever they had been, they were men!

The book that I continually revisit again and again, even from my childhood, is the book of Revelation. As an artist, it just captivated my imagination so much and has influenced much of my own art. I can easily see why this book was so controversial to be included in the NT canon, but it is extradonairy. Might be the best book ever written.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Favorite Book: Tao Te ChingFavorite Book About Orthodoxy: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, ed. by Benedicta WardFavorite Book By A Contemporary Orthodox Author: Way of the Ascetics, by Tito CollianderFavorite Other-Christian Book: Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, by G.K. ChestertonFavorite Fiction: Notes From Underground, by Fyodor DostoevskyFavorite Book That I'll Probably Never Read Again: The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander SolzhenitsynFavorite Book That I Claim To Love But Haven't Read In a Decade: Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. TolkienFavorite Book From My Youth: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. LewisFavorite Book That I'm Currently Reading: Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter KaufmannFavorite Book That I've Read For Entertainment's Sake: Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, by Mick FoleyFavorite Book of Poems: The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence DunbarFavorite Book on Fitness and Nutrition: Strength Training Anatomy, by Frederic DelavierFavorite Book on Books/Writing: Writer's Market (2010 Edition)Favorite Book on Philosophy: Greek Skepticism: Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought, by Leo GroarkeFavorite Biography: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Maisie Ward

Amazing taste in books, that reflects alot of what I was thinking of putting down.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Most important text I read and that I read continually: Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, arguably the most important work of non-fiction in the 20th century. All philosophy begins here. His entire corpus is included in my list, but you must start with B&T. No Heidegger, no Orthodoxy for me.

Book that surprised me the most by how it affected me and continues to do so: Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. Was "stranded" for weeks and this was the only book available and I was running out of my usual distractions and getting rather sick. So picked this text up with severe reservation and desire to mock it. The final chapter still gets to me after dozens of readings. Not sure I would recommend it to anyone, but it has survived my culling of thousands of books.

Author that almost no one truly reads and brazenly misunderstands and who I love: Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil and Ecce Homo simply some of the greatest works of irony, especially the latter. I can probably pretty much rattle off from memory the preface. The first sentence alone speaks volumes. One of the few times I sighed in disappointment listening to Fr. Thomas Hopko was when he called Neech a Nazi philosopher.

"Fiction" Classics-wise? That is terribly difficult, but if I had to judge by how often I read a text, then it is the Oresteia and I can whittle it down to the Agamemnon. Lattimore over Fitzgerald. But how I love the ridiculously extended metaphors and similes in the Iliad and its (traditional) incredibly beautiful "end".

Poetry? Strange way there, but Emily Dickinson, especially her later work. While working on some research into Paul Celan, I came across his translations of her work into German and found through him a singular poet who I had written off as the voice of angsty teen-aged girls. Evidently, the average artsy fourteen year old girl knows more than I do.

So far Orthodoxy-wise:

The sayings of the Desert Fathers. And again I could reduce to that to simply the saying of St. Anthony for now.

Great Lent by Father Alexander Schmemann. Being a baby, this text is just so rich for me, within and without Lent.

The Gospel of St. Mark without the later ending. Always was my favorite as a kid and remains so to this day, if one can have such conceit to measure the Gospels in such a manner. Direct, stark, no nonsense, and a provocative ending for those expecting the story to end a little differently.

Again, as I have said, I don't like favorites.

But if you had to take all my books away at this point in my life save one, without any false piety, I would keep my Oxford Annotated RSV. It is the most important in my life now on a daily basis. But I would not have gotten there again without Heidegger and Neech and through everything else they opened up.